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Christine Bennett #15
The Bar Mitzvah Murder
TODAY, I AM A DEAD MAN
For suburban sleuth Christine Bennett, the chance to visit the Holy Land is a dream come true. Her best friend Melanie Gross will be in Jerusalem at the same time for the Bar Mitzvah of her very wealthy cousin. Although he’s long past the customary age of thirteen, Gabe is planning a lavish party and is flying family and friends over from the States to celebrate. Not accustomed to traveling, Christine is thrilled to have Melanie along to share the experience.
The beauty and mystery of the golden city is overwhelming, and Christine is excited about exploring every part of it—until Gabe disappears without a trace, turning her vacation tour into a trail of clues that leads to a cold and cunning killer. . . .
For suburban sleuth Christine Bennett, the chance to visit the Holy Land is a dream come true. Her best friend Melanie Gross will be in Jerusalem at the same time for the Bar Mitzvah of her very wealthy cousin. Although he’s long past the customary age of thirteen, Gabe is planning a lavish party and is flying family and friends over from the States to celebrate. Not accustomed to traveling, Christine is thrilled to have Melanie along to share the experience.
The beauty and mystery of the golden city is overwhelming, and Christine is excited about exploring every part of it—until Gabe disappears without a trace, turning her vacation tour into a trail of clues that leads to a cold and cunning killer. . . .
272 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 3, 2004
9 people are currently reading
143 people want to read
About the author
Lee Harris
97 books77 followersA pseudonym used by Syrell Leahy.
Lee Harris is the author of the mystery novels featuring ex-nun Christine Bennett, who first appeared in The Good Friday Murder, an Edgar Award nominee. She also writes the New York Mysteries, which debuted with Murder in Hell's Kitchen. In 2001, Lee Harris received the Romantic Times magazine Career Achievement Award for her distinguished contribution to crime writing.
Lee Harris is the author of the mystery novels featuring ex-nun Christine Bennett, who first appeared in The Good Friday Murder, an Edgar Award nominee. She also writes the New York Mysteries, which debuted with Murder in Hell's Kitchen. In 2001, Lee Harris received the Romantic Times magazine Career Achievement Award for her distinguished contribution to crime writing.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 3, 2020
Review for April 2020:
Christine Bennett's best friend Melanie Gross calls with exciting news. She and her whole family are headed to the Holy Land to celebrate her cousin's bar mitzvah. He's in his 30's or 40's, but had never been very religious until very recently so he didn't feel like he had done it right and wants to do it right and do it BIG now. Gabe is very wealthy and can afford to take his family and pay for what amounts to a fabulous vacation for about forty people. Chris is very excited for her friend and thinks how nice it would be to visit Israel some day. Little does she know...
Chris's husband Jack has recently been promoted (after passing both the bar exam and the lieutenant's exam) and after serving an obligatory stint at a precinct before a final appointment can be made. At the end of that stint he's recalled to the main police offices at One Police Plaza where he'll have an office in the Legal Bureau. He's barely moved in before he receives a summons from the Deputy Commissioner to take on a special assignment in....c'mon, you've guessed it...Israel. US police officers are going to work with the Israeli police to set up a computer database to track criminals wanted by both countries. And it just so happens that the trip will take place at the same time as Melanie and her family will be there. Jack has been given permission to bring Chris and their young son, Eddie along for the trip--and his parents book separately so they can spend time with their grandson. It's going to be a fantastic trip.
But (it's a mystery series and murder's in the title, so you know what's coming)...after the bar mitzvah ceremony Gabe is found unconscious in the hotel's garden/park area during the celebratory party back at the hotel. A member of the family who is a doctor says that someone should call an ambulance and in short order it appears on the scene. The attendants whisk Gabe into the vehicle and take off--refusing to let his wife get in with him. It isn't until they're gone that everyone realizes that no one knows what hospital Gabe is headed for. A quick check with the hotel reveals that no one called for an ambulance and phone calls to a few of the hospitals result in no answer. That's when Melanie calls on her secret weapon--Chris.
Once they get the story sorted, Jack calls his Israeli liaison who takes over the job of finding out where Gabe has been taken. The news isn't good--no hospital had an ambulance run to that particular hotel that night. Gabe is missing and no one knows why or who might have taken him. Mel asks Chris to do what she can to investigate, but our heroine barely has time to start when the worst happens. Gabe's body is found beaten to death in a less desirable part of the city. It's up to Chris to figure out who wanted Gabe dead and why.
The best part of this one is the look at Israel in the early 2000's when air travel was still fairly easy. We get a good look at various parts of the country--and Jerusalem in particular--and we get to meet various citizens of the country. The mystery plot is good--though it's a little more riddled with coincidence than some of the others. The death was a little brutal and given the circumstances, I was surprised that Harris didn't have one of the suspects show a little more feeling about what happened...especially since things went a little farther than intended. The last time I read this (pre-blogging days), I gave it four stars, but I think this time around it's really a ★★★ outing. The two ratings average to 3 1/2, so I'll keep it rounded up here.
Above review first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.
Previous Review:
Another good one by Lee Harris. This one takes Christine Bennett all the way to Israel to find her mystery. Chris has a way of getting people to talk to her when they won't talk to the police and also has a way of seeing old murders from a different perspective. I've read about ten from this series and even though they might appear a bit formulaic, they always reel me in. And I rarely figure out whodunnit before Chris does. [four stars previously]
Christine Bennett's best friend Melanie Gross calls with exciting news. She and her whole family are headed to the Holy Land to celebrate her cousin's bar mitzvah. He's in his 30's or 40's, but had never been very religious until very recently so he didn't feel like he had done it right and wants to do it right and do it BIG now. Gabe is very wealthy and can afford to take his family and pay for what amounts to a fabulous vacation for about forty people. Chris is very excited for her friend and thinks how nice it would be to visit Israel some day. Little does she know...
Chris's husband Jack has recently been promoted (after passing both the bar exam and the lieutenant's exam) and after serving an obligatory stint at a precinct before a final appointment can be made. At the end of that stint he's recalled to the main police offices at One Police Plaza where he'll have an office in the Legal Bureau. He's barely moved in before he receives a summons from the Deputy Commissioner to take on a special assignment in....c'mon, you've guessed it...Israel. US police officers are going to work with the Israeli police to set up a computer database to track criminals wanted by both countries. And it just so happens that the trip will take place at the same time as Melanie and her family will be there. Jack has been given permission to bring Chris and their young son, Eddie along for the trip--and his parents book separately so they can spend time with their grandson. It's going to be a fantastic trip.
But (it's a mystery series and murder's in the title, so you know what's coming)...after the bar mitzvah ceremony Gabe is found unconscious in the hotel's garden/park area during the celebratory party back at the hotel. A member of the family who is a doctor says that someone should call an ambulance and in short order it appears on the scene. The attendants whisk Gabe into the vehicle and take off--refusing to let his wife get in with him. It isn't until they're gone that everyone realizes that no one knows what hospital Gabe is headed for. A quick check with the hotel reveals that no one called for an ambulance and phone calls to a few of the hospitals result in no answer. That's when Melanie calls on her secret weapon--Chris.
Once they get the story sorted, Jack calls his Israeli liaison who takes over the job of finding out where Gabe has been taken. The news isn't good--no hospital had an ambulance run to that particular hotel that night. Gabe is missing and no one knows why or who might have taken him. Mel asks Chris to do what she can to investigate, but our heroine barely has time to start when the worst happens. Gabe's body is found beaten to death in a less desirable part of the city. It's up to Chris to figure out who wanted Gabe dead and why.
The best part of this one is the look at Israel in the early 2000's when air travel was still fairly easy. We get a good look at various parts of the country--and Jerusalem in particular--and we get to meet various citizens of the country. The mystery plot is good--though it's a little more riddled with coincidence than some of the others. The death was a little brutal and given the circumstances, I was surprised that Harris didn't have one of the suspects show a little more feeling about what happened...especially since things went a little farther than intended. The last time I read this (pre-blogging days), I gave it four stars, but I think this time around it's really a ★★★ outing. The two ratings average to 3 1/2, so I'll keep it rounded up here.
Above review first posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.
Previous Review:
Another good one by Lee Harris. This one takes Christine Bennett all the way to Israel to find her mystery. Chris has a way of getting people to talk to her when they won't talk to the police and also has a way of seeing old murders from a different perspective. I've read about ten from this series and even though they might appear a bit formulaic, they always reel me in. And I rarely figure out whodunnit before Chris does. [four stars previously]
July 5, 2010
Good story marred by pace, extraneous "travelogue" filler...
We've been Lee Harris fans for quite a while, having read all fifteen of the prior ex-nun Christine Bennett mysteries. The series features Chris's introduction to the secular life after resigning from a nunnery after half her life at age 30. Over the course of the prior novels, she "ages" about half a year per book: she meets NYPD detective Jack (who's a handy official resource to her amateur sleuthing), becomes engaged and marries him, and has a baby, now four-year-old Eddie. The various yarns feature her solving mostly crimes from the past that never received adequate police work, allowing Chris to nose around with unlimited time and questioning until new facts appear in sufficient quantity to unravel long buried truths. The tales are clean family fare, with little or no violence, sex, swearing, or much other unpleasantness other than the crime that spawns the plot per se.
This latest entry, "Bar Mitzvah", starts off so far-fetched, that we were irritated almost from the start. A rich older man, Gabe Gross, decides he wants a proper Bar Mitzvah, and takes 40 friends and relatives to Israel to do it up right. Included is Chris's best girlfriend, Gabe's relative Melanie Gross, who naturally is excited at her impending foreign experience. Just by coincidence (gulp!) Chris's hubby, now a rising star lawyer-officer in the NYPD HQ, gets a special two-week assignment to -- guess where ?!? -- Israel, to coincide with the big celebration. When Gabe first gets sick, then rushed away in an ambulance, only to be the victim of a kidnapping/murder, our favorite busybody gets into her act and beats the apparently inept local police to every clue and every development in solving the case. Just in case there might be a shard of suspense to this fiction, the main plot is interrupted in virtually every chapter with little side trips by all concerned throughout the wonderful landscape of modern Israel and its wonderful biblical settings, visits to the wonderful shops there, meals at the wonderful restaurants there, etc. Get the drift? By the time the whole story comes out, involving a falsified last will and testament and mysterious things found in Gabe's safe back at home in America, we're so tired of the whole thing we just want it over. Only the last 25 pages or so of this plodding 250-page account had us really turning pages out of anything but loyalty.
This book smacks of something due to fulfill a contract, possibly as justification for author Syrell Rogovin Leahy traveling to Israel as "research" to write off her trip to the homeland of her ancestors. To us, an interesting travelogue it isn't; moreover, the now worldly Chris is getting to be a bit of a bore if you please.
We note that Harris has turned to a new character for both the previously published "Murder in Hell's Kitchen" and her upcoming novel "Murder in Alphabet City", both featuring NYPD Detective Jane Bauer. Perhaps Lee herself realizes Christine may well have run her course. Although I see (from the author's web site) that at least one more entry is due in the set, we hope she returns to form with a story that grabs and holds our attention. "Mitzvah" wasn't wretched, just disappointing compared to the rest.
We've been Lee Harris fans for quite a while, having read all fifteen of the prior ex-nun Christine Bennett mysteries. The series features Chris's introduction to the secular life after resigning from a nunnery after half her life at age 30. Over the course of the prior novels, she "ages" about half a year per book: she meets NYPD detective Jack (who's a handy official resource to her amateur sleuthing), becomes engaged and marries him, and has a baby, now four-year-old Eddie. The various yarns feature her solving mostly crimes from the past that never received adequate police work, allowing Chris to nose around with unlimited time and questioning until new facts appear in sufficient quantity to unravel long buried truths. The tales are clean family fare, with little or no violence, sex, swearing, or much other unpleasantness other than the crime that spawns the plot per se.
This latest entry, "Bar Mitzvah", starts off so far-fetched, that we were irritated almost from the start. A rich older man, Gabe Gross, decides he wants a proper Bar Mitzvah, and takes 40 friends and relatives to Israel to do it up right. Included is Chris's best girlfriend, Gabe's relative Melanie Gross, who naturally is excited at her impending foreign experience. Just by coincidence (gulp!) Chris's hubby, now a rising star lawyer-officer in the NYPD HQ, gets a special two-week assignment to -- guess where ?!? -- Israel, to coincide with the big celebration. When Gabe first gets sick, then rushed away in an ambulance, only to be the victim of a kidnapping/murder, our favorite busybody gets into her act and beats the apparently inept local police to every clue and every development in solving the case. Just in case there might be a shard of suspense to this fiction, the main plot is interrupted in virtually every chapter with little side trips by all concerned throughout the wonderful landscape of modern Israel and its wonderful biblical settings, visits to the wonderful shops there, meals at the wonderful restaurants there, etc. Get the drift? By the time the whole story comes out, involving a falsified last will and testament and mysterious things found in Gabe's safe back at home in America, we're so tired of the whole thing we just want it over. Only the last 25 pages or so of this plodding 250-page account had us really turning pages out of anything but loyalty.
This book smacks of something due to fulfill a contract, possibly as justification for author Syrell Rogovin Leahy traveling to Israel as "research" to write off her trip to the homeland of her ancestors. To us, an interesting travelogue it isn't; moreover, the now worldly Chris is getting to be a bit of a bore if you please.
We note that Harris has turned to a new character for both the previously published "Murder in Hell's Kitchen" and her upcoming novel "Murder in Alphabet City", both featuring NYPD Detective Jane Bauer. Perhaps Lee herself realizes Christine may well have run her course. Although I see (from the author's web site) that at least one more entry is due in the set, we hope she returns to form with a story that grabs and holds our attention. "Mitzvah" wasn't wretched, just disappointing compared to the rest.
Read
January 24, 2017Not the best, not the worst; typical of the series though the setting in Jerusalem is somewhat interesting. Only two left in the series.
November 24, 2020
I enjoyed yet another Chris Bennet mystery. Who'd think that a former nun would be so skilled at a) solving murders, b) being so New Yorkie c) being so adept at working in the Jewish community. Again, it was a mystery that I didn't quite solved. This one is set at an adult Bar Mitzvah in Israel. In a trip of life time, Chris and her husband, the police lieutenant, go to the Holy Land to help the Jerusalem police. Her best friend, Mel Gross, also would be in Israel at the same time. Then then unthinkable happens. Read it, and try to solve it yourself.
February 13, 2020
Quite different from the usual Christine Bennett plot, but extremely well done!
April 10, 2020
Another fun read. This time Chris and her family go overseas. I have two more books in the series. I will miss the characters!
February 4, 2026
My favorite feature of this book: it took me on a tour of Israel, with Jerusalem as our home base.
January 24, 2015
#15 in the Christine Bennett series. Ex-nun Chris accompanies her husband NYPD Lt. Jack Brooks to Jerusalem where he is assigned for a two week liaison mission. Coincidently, her best friend Mel will also be there attending her uncle's adult Bar Mitzvah. The uncle disappears, is found unconscious and packed off in an ambulance. The ambulance is bogus and the uncle is later found murdered. Since Mel's family is aware of her amateur sleuth status, they implore her to look into the matter after the local cops do not seem highly motivated. Good fun read and the Israeli color is most enjoyable.
Christine Bennett series - For suburban sleuth Christine Bennett, the chance to visit the Holy Land is a dream come true. Her best friend Melanie Gross will be in Jerusalem at the same time for the Bar Mitzvah of her very wealthy cousin. Although he's long past the customary age of 13, Gabe is planning a lavish party and is flying family and friends over from the States to celebrate. Not accustomed to traveling, Christine is thrilled to have Melanie along to share the experience. The beauty and mystery of the golden city is overwhelming, and Christine is excited about exploring every part of it - until Gabe disappears without a trace, turning her vacation tour into a trail of clues that leads to a cold and cunning killer.
Christine Bennett series - For suburban sleuth Christine Bennett, the chance to visit the Holy Land is a dream come true. Her best friend Melanie Gross will be in Jerusalem at the same time for the Bar Mitzvah of her very wealthy cousin. Although he's long past the customary age of 13, Gabe is planning a lavish party and is flying family and friends over from the States to celebrate. Not accustomed to traveling, Christine is thrilled to have Melanie along to share the experience. The beauty and mystery of the golden city is overwhelming, and Christine is excited about exploring every part of it - until Gabe disappears without a trace, turning her vacation tour into a trail of clues that leads to a cold and cunning killer.
February 19, 2011
When I read my first Lee Harris novel, I put it in the predictable yet enjoyable category...you know, something to read when you don't want to tax a lot of brain cells. Needing some mindless enjoyment, I picked up The Bar Mitzvah Murder at the library last week. Blech! What a mistake! The book reads like Ms. Lee retelling the adventures of her last vacation. Jeez, this book was filled with great details for a travel brochure, but useless clutter for a mystery novel. And you know what really bugged me? Seriously?? HUMMUS. Yes, pulverized chickpeas and assorted spices! The author waxed lyrical about it nearly every freakin' chapter like it was oh, I don't know, something exotic found only in Israel instead of being available in regular grocery stores in the United States. And really? The police departments in New York *and* Israel let civilians investigate murders? And estate lawyers don't care if Jane Q. Public goes around notifying beneficiaries about inheritences? Wow. I feel bad about the two days of my life that I slogged through this book that I will never get back.
October 1, 2010
This is a delightful cozy mystery read. Christine Bennett, suburban sleuth, whose husband, Jack, is a lawyer/policeman, travels with her husband to Israel. It is to be an enjoyable trip for Christine but one of her friends is attending a bar mitzvah for a cousin. The cousin is murdered and Christine begins investigating. I truly enjoy mystery reads when I cannot figure out who the murderer may be and this was one of them. It's a quick enjoyable read. I recommend it to those who enjoy cozy mysteries. Lee Harris is a very good story teller. She has a long list of mysteries to her credit and has won an RT Achievement Career Award.
July 17, 2011
This is great one where the Heroine goes to visit in the Holy Land and trying to find a murderer in a foreign land with extended family and friends there as well. I really enjoyed this book in the Christine Bennett series.
August 16, 2009
Chris travels to Israel at the same time as her friend Mel. It is an interesting setting and the author shares her impressions of the city.
August 10, 2010
This one was pretty good. I liked the new place, and learned quite a bit. It was interesting.
January 12, 2011
christine bennett
September 7, 2013
something hidden in a closet for over 20 years...
April 9, 2016
Enjoyed the Jewish background and good plot, style not as profound as some.
January 21, 2016
Pretty good storyline, however, some unbelievable moments of detective work in a foreign country.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews